World News Quick Take

AGENCIES

■ AUSTRALIA

Man bludgeoned to death

Members of a motorcycle gang bludgeoned a rival to death in Sydney airport yesterday as horrified passengers looked on, police said. Witnesses said the bikers beat the man with metal crowd control bollards as he lay on the ground in the check-in area. “All of a sudden, a whole rush of guys came through the crowd, picked up the poles and just started smacking this guy in the head,” witness Phil Crew told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Crew said some of the attackers then fled in taxis. The 28-year-old victim suffered severe head injuries and died in hospital. “They beat him across the head a couple of times at the back, they all laid into him, there was a lot of blood and everything. Then they got away,” another witness told Channel 10 television. The channel reported that the fight was between members of the Hell’s Angels and Comancheros biker gangs.

■ THAILAND

No bugs for asthma sufferers

The Health Ministry has warned people suffering from asthma and allergies to avoid eating fried insects, a popular street-stall snack in Bangkok and other cities, media reports said yesterday. A recent study conducted by the ministry found that the fried silk worms, grasshoppers and other six-legged delicacies often contain excessively high levels of histamine that can trigger allergic reactions or asthma attacks, the Nation newspaper reported. Ministry data showed that some 118 people were hospitalized between Dec. 24 and Jan. 7 with allergic reactions and food-poisoning symptoms after eating fried bugs from street vendors in seven provincial cities.

■ HONG KONG

Biker collides with monkey

A motorcyclist was injured on Saturday in a collision with a monkey on a road in rural Tai Po district in which the monkey was killed, police said. The motorcyclist, who told officers the monkey ran out into the road in front of him, was treated for minor injuries in hospital, a police spokesman said. Hong Kong is home to a booming population of more than 2,000 grey macaque monkeys that live mostly in countryside areas near the former British colony’s border with China. Countryside wardens have recently stepped up efforts to stop people feeding the monkeys after a series of incidents in which the animals have attacked hikers for food.

■ MALAYSIA

Groups pan tiger park plan

A coalition of wildlife groups have criticized plans by Penang to set up a 40 hectare tiger park, saying it could hurt the state’s tourist industry. The park would also go against the central government’s commitment to protect and increase tiger populations in the wild, the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers said in a letter over the weekend to the state’s chief minister. The department of wildlife and national parks aims to double the country’s remaining 500-strong wild tiger population. “Building zoos and wildlife parks always sound simple and exciting, but in reality this is far from the truth and has far more negative implications,” the group said.

■ MALAYSIA

Girls file abuse complaint

Four girls have filed a police complaint against their stepfather, an unemployed Indonesian, alleging that he raped and sodomized them for four years, the New Straits Times reported yesterday. The sisters, aged between 12 and 19, were afraid to tell anyone about the abuse. They finally confided to a female relative on Thursday at a wedding, who then took the girls to the police.